Death Spiral (16 page)

“That’s right.”

“Does she know?”

“Not yet. I’m going to ask, though.”

“Have you known her for very long?”

“All my life.”

Duncan crossed his big arms and shoved his hands into the sleeves of his tattered coat. It looked to Wilf like he was hugging himself.

“She’s beautiful,” Duncan said.

“You think so?”

“Yes I do. You can come to the wedding.”

“If there’s a wedding I’ll certainly come to it, you can bet on that.”

“Do you want me to start up a saw to show you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Duncan looked around. “That’s all that’s out here then. This is about it.”

“Do you think we can have a walk out to the barn? I’ve always had a soft spot for horses.”

“If you want. Sure.”

As they approached the barnyard Dandy began stamping a large hairy foot and snorting steam into the cold air.

“Hey there,” Wilf said softly.

The horse raised his big head over the top board to get a better look. Wilf rubbed his nose.

“How old is he?”

“Just seven. He’s real good most of the time.”

“A gelding?”

“Shit yeah. He’d be nothin’ but trouble if he wasn’t.”

“How old’s the other one?”

“Almost twenty-one. She’ll be twenty-one this summer.”

Duncan pushed open the stable door. Babe was standing quietly in her stall. She was two hands shorter than Dandy, according to Duncan, but still a good size, content to stand there quietly and munch on the armful of hay Duncan dropped in front of her.

Wilf rubbed her wide flank; he could hear her teeth grinding away.

“I’ve been meaning to get a driving horse,” Duncan said, “but then Babe and Dandy wouldn’t get any work in the summer and then they’d break down in the winter. It’s heavy work hauling out timber.”

“A smaller horse for the cutter, you mean?” Wilf had seen a heavy wagon on wooden skis pulled up beside the barn. A small cutter, its red paint faded and peeling, was sitting behind it.

“And the buggy in the summer.” Duncan nodded toward a buggy shape standing farther off in the dark shadows of the barn.

“When you get married you’ll have to get yourself a car,” Wilf said.

Duncan began to scratch Babe’s haunch. He grinned. “I know.”

* * *

Carole was right about the dance.

They did more or less sway in one spot to the slow numbers and sit out the fast ones. And Wilf did press his cheek against her cheek and she did feel her breasts pushing softly against his wounded arm. And she did feel his lips against her hair, her ear.

They left the dance early and fifteen minutes later Wilf was renting a tiny cabin from a commercial establishment just south of Galt. It was well-known for renting out its tourist cabins for just such an occasion. Cabin Three sat on the snowy bank of the same river that some miles farther on passed through their town.

Wilf turned on the light and set the electric heater to high. Carole looked out the window as if she’d just become fascinated by the dark stretch of frozen river, even though, once he’d turned on the light she couldn’t see a thing.

How did they arrive at this decision, she wondered? She couldn’t remember saying yes.

Wilf had kissed her, she’d kissed him back and his lips had felt delicious and warm and boozy, and she’d hoped hers had felt just the same way to him, and then he’d taken her hand and they’d gotten up from their table, even though the dance was far from over, and without a word they’d walked over to get their coats.

It was the holding of hands, she thought, because Wilf had refused to use his cane all evening, asking the attendant to hang it up with his coat, and now he was holding her hand tightly and limping deeply beside her, and she wanted so much to turn to him and tell him that his situation, his condition, didn’t matter to her, wanted to tell him that so much that she could hardly see where she was going.

That’s the moment when I said yes, she thought to herself.

But it wasn’t out of pity. It certainly wasn’t that.

These things were always awkward, though, at least at first. Pulling up to this dubious establishment with its stupid neon rainbow sign and not saying a word to each other was certainly awkward. And watching Wilf go into the office and come back with a key.

“Got it,” he’d said.

What was she supposed to have replied, “Hurrah?”

So she’d remained silent and she supposed, though she hadn’t really intended it to be that way, inscrutable.

When the light went on in the cabin, she’d taken one quick look at the painted iron bed with its faded quilt and questionable pillows and she knew that she had several choices. She could stand there at the window like a dummy and have Wilf go through the ritual of taking off her hat and her coat and her boots, coaxing her every inch of the way, or they could do this thing together. She and Donny had done everything together.

She watched Wilf’s reflection in the window. He seemed to be taking a long time with the heater. Or she could say she’d changed her mind. Three things she could do.

Wilf stood up and turned the light back off. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Carole said. When she turned she could hardly see him.

“I haven’t done this for a long time,” Wilf said.

Carole almost said “Me, either” but she caught herself. Not that Wilf would think she was a virgin. She wondered what he did think, or know. Lots, she thought, everybody knows.

The excruciating thing, though, was that Donny had been her one and only lover if she didn’t count Michael Cooper’s hand. Sometimes she could hardly remember what it had been like being with Donny. At other times, lying in her room at night, she remembered only too well, as if he were right there beside her. Her body remembered him. But it had been five years of abstinence.

A world record, Carole thought.

Wilf came over to her and she could feel his lips on her lips. It had been such a long time. She could feel his hand unbuttoning her coat, touching her breasts through her dress. Not good for a person. He moved against her. She could feel his hips press against her hips. She could feel something else.

“Oh god,” Wilf breathed in the dark.

Wilf had wanted to thank her afterwards, lying beside her on the narrow bed, the sheets cold when they’d begun but warm now, her beautiful face visible in the moonlight, her beautiful breasts, waist, curve of her hip faintly visible. Everything was beautiful, but he knew it would be the worst thing he could say, something no woman wanted to hear in that particular situation. Thank you.

But that’s how he felt.

He’d been broken, his side alternately ridged with scars or smooth as glass, his arm hideously out of its sling. She’d touched it and he hadn’t felt a thing, but it hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered but her exploring, tender touch, as if she were the one who’d gone blind, as if she were concentrating on discovering every part of him.

Wilf drew close to her. Her body felt warm and cool all at the same time. It felt sublime. He pressed his face against her watchful, intelligent, gorgeous face. Her secretary’s face. Her typist’s face.

And he’d touched her like a blind man, too, and her breath had become a little cry and a moan, and when he couldn’t support his own weight over her she had moved to the perfect place and they had soared together and they had clung together, and they had become amazed.

“Thank you,” Wilf whispered. He couldn’t help himself.

Carole kissed his cheek. “Don’t be stupid. Shhhh,” she said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Though Carole didn’t say anything she worried about the state of her clothes all the way into town. It wasn’t quite eleven o’clock, which meant her mother and her ridiculously old-fashioned father might still be sitting up talking about their only child. They knew she was going out with Wilf McLauchlin again because she’d told them. Her mother would take one look at her wrinkled dress, and it was certainly wrinkled because it had somehow landed underneath Wilf instead of on the floor, and she would know. How could she not know?

This was annoying and frustrating because she was twenty-five after all, but still her parents knew her private history only too well and she didn’t want them to think that she was going to become one of “those women,” of which the town had a few, out of disappointment or disillusionment or some such thing.

Wilf hadn’t had a condom with him, or at least he hadn’t taken the time to put it on and she hadn’t asked him, either. It just didn’t seem a very positive thing to mention and then of course it was too late. She didn’t want to worry about that, though. It was better to distract herself by worrying about her dress.

When they reached the edge of town Wilf said he’d like to stop in at the Arlington Hotel for a nightcap. He wondered if she might, too. Carole said yes. Her parents almost never sat up past midnight. They went in on the
Ladies & Escorts Only
side. Carole ordered a rum and Coke and Wilf asked Teddy for a draft beer, since he had something important to do later and didn’t want to get too fuzzy-minded.

“What do you have to do later?” Carole asked.

She smiled a funny smile and Wilf’s heart felt instantly warm, though the situation seemed both surprising and slightly ridiculous. He hadn’t made any plans to fall in love and he could feel himself resisting the idea now. It was just gratitude he was feeling. And sheer happiness because, against great odds, his body had worked.

“What’s so important?” Carole asked again.

“What do you know about a fellow called Duncan Getty?”

Her smile faded and her grey eyes widened a little. “Why?”

“Some kid was talking to Andy today. He thinks our murdered man worked out at Getty’s sawmill.”

“That’s not possible.”

“What isn’t?”

“That Duncan had anything to do with that man. I’ve known him for years.”

“I went out there earlier today. He mentioned you. Actually, he spoke very highly of you.”

“Why did my name come up?”

“He knows you work for my father.”

“Yes, well I guess he would. Anyway Duncan is just this big, gentle, not-quite-bright teddy bear. As far as I know he’s never done anything wrong in his whole life. You went out there today?”

“Just to have a casual conversation, I didn’t say anything.”

“Well, he might look kind of scary but he’s harmless. When I was about ten, he nearly killed himself one day.”

“How do you mean?”

“He was showing off in a playground, swinging on this swing, standing up on it and going higher and higher. He was trying to impress me. That’s why. And then he went right over the top and fell. He was just lying there on the ground as still as anything. A woman came running over. My whole body felt like it was full of pins and needles. I just got up and walked home. I still feel guilty about it.”

“What else could you have done?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

Teddy arrived with their drinks and winked at Wilf. Apparently he was still an admirer despite or perhaps because of the theft of the two glasses. After he went away Wilf said, “I took a photograph of our man in the woods out to Duncan. He says he never worked for him.”

Carole looked a little frightened. “Isn’t that what the police are supposed to do, run around with photographs?”

“Remember those tracks I was telling you about? The thing is, who’d be more likely to think up a trick like that than Duncan? And the murderer used a horse and cutter. And Duncan knows all the bush lots around here and there’s not a farmhouse anywhere near Cline’s bush so it was the perfect spot. And of course, there’s the question of the axe.”

Carole closed her eyes. “Why are you taking this upon yourself?”

At that moment Wilf realized how much he wanted to tell her everything. Everything. About the man who wasn’t really there. And the boy. And Buchenwald. “It’s Andy. He wants me to help him out.”

Carole opened her eyes again. She looked around the room. There were only a few other couples in the place. A quiet night. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Carole?”

“What?”

“All right then.” Something had caught Wilf’s eye. Joe, the Head Man, had just passed the doorway and was heading down the hall.

“It just makes me feel sick,” Carole was saying.

“Could you excuse me for a second?” Wilf got up from the table.

By the time he’d reached the men’s washroom Joe was standing unsteadily at the urinal splashing copious amounts of urine into the long metal trough. Wilf stood at the other end and added his own flow to the floating cigarette butts and the discarded wads of gum.

“Hello again,” Wilf said.

Joe didn’t look at him and didn’t reply.

“Remember me? We met at the camp yesterday. And later on we saw each other out by the woods.”

Joe teetered a little.

“By the way, that man who was killed? We think we know who he is now.”

Joe shook himself off and began to button up his trousers.

“And we know who did it. It had nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with your men.”

Joe turned slowly and looked at Wilf with enormous bloodshot eyes.

“He came from your camp, though.”

“Basil,” Joe said. His voice sounded thicker than it had the day before.

“Yes, Basil.” Wilf turned away and trying to look nonchalant stared at the grimy wall in front of him.

“Nothing but trouble. All his life. I should have said no. That’s all.”

“No to what?”

“No!” Joe bellowed, “No to Basil. No to his goddamn nonsense. No to stirring up trouble all the time. No!”

Wilf could hear Joe staggering off, opening the door. He zipped himself up.

“Go to hell, Basil,” Joe was mumbling. “Take your tricks down the tracks. Bother some other people. We know who you are.” He was leaning heavily against the door frame. He swung his head up and looked back at Wilf. “How he escaped the ovens, no one knows. Yes, ovens, Mr. Policeman. Ovens for men like Basil. For men who made love with other men. Didn’t you know this? And there was our Basil , every day trying to be like a woman. He’d never stop bothering the other men.”

Joe turned and blundered out the door.

Wilf crossed to the sink and ran some water. He could see the little man lying in the snow. He could see the lonely house out in the country, its shop and barn standing in a sea of wintery fields.

He could see Duncan.

* * *

Andy was already standing at the end of his driveway when Wilf picked him up. It was one o’clock in the morning. Andy slid in beside him and closed the door.

“What did you tell Linda?”

“That you were having trouble sleeping again. That you wanted to go for a drive.”

“What did she say?”

“Tell Wilf hello.”

Wilf pulled away down the narrow back street. “No, she didn’t. What did she really say?”

“‘What are you two up to?’ and then, when I didn’t answer she said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ How was the dance?”

“It was good.”

“How good?”

“Let’s just say it was good.”

“Okay.” Andy grinned and started patting himself down.

When Wilf had come back to the beverage room he hadn’t told Carole what Joe had said, but he’d suddenly found himself going on about the impression the iron tether had left in the ice and the plan to meet up with Andy later that night to go out to Duncan’s to search in his cutter for the same tether. He even went so far as to pull out the folded piece of paper he was carrying where he’d traced the stress cracks.

“It’s like someone’s fingerprint,” he said, opening it up and showing it to her.

Carole hardly looked at it and she didn’t say anything in response.

“What are you thinking?”

“I should go home now,” Carole said.

They drove in silence over to her house with a tortuous space between them and it was Carole who closed the gap to kiss good night. Wilf held her tightly to him. “I love you,” he said, though it was the last thing he’d intended to say.

“I love you, too,” Carole had replied all in a rush, as if the words had been torn right out of her.

Andy found his cigarettes. He lit one up and filled the car with a cloud of smoke. They were approaching the north end of the town. “Duncan should be fast asleep by now.”

“I threw a flashlight in the back. How about you?”

“What do you think I am, an amateur?” Andy drew a flashlight out of his coat pocket. “Just remember. If it is a match, we bring it back into town. Nothing more.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“And pray we don’t get a sudden thaw that melts that goddamn piece of ice in your garage.” Andy grinned at him.

It looked to Wilf like he was enjoying himself.

* * *

Carole’s bedroom window lit up. Duncan had been waiting a long time and felt frozen but it was worth it. It was always worth it. Besides, tonight was going to be a special night. He could feel his heart beginning to spin like a flywheel.

He stepped across the backyard and reached for one of the small pieces of ice he’d stuffed in his coat pocket just for this very moment. He knew he should catch Carole’s attention before she started taking off her clothes. That way she wouldn’t suspect that he’d ever stood in her backyard before. It would seem like the first time.

And he had to be careful not to wake up her father, but then again he really didn’t care anymore. He’d just say what he had to say anyway. Nothing could stop him now. He had to do it.

Duncan tossed up the first piece of ice that came to hand and to his surprise scored a direct hit. The glass rattled. Carole came to the window and looked out. He stepped into the rectangular patch of light on the snow. Carole shaded her eyes. He waved up at her. He motioned for her to open her window.

Carole continued to stare down at him but she didn’t move. Then he realized why. There was a storm window covering the outside. He’d forgotten about that. She could raise the inside window, but it wouldn’t do any good. She still wouldn’t be able to hear what he was about to say.

That wasn’t part of his plan.

Carole disappeared.

I’m in trouble, Duncan thought. He took a few steps back toward the trees and was about to break into a run, but he stopped himself. He was a man, after all. He was going to act like one.

He stood there bracing himself, waiting for Mr. Birley to come out and call him bad names. The back door opened and Carole stepped out instead. She looked really small standing there on the stoop in the cold. She didn’t even have a coat on.

That’s how much she wants to see me, Duncan thought to himself.

“What are you doing?” Carole whispered.

“Hi, Carole,” Duncan said, and though he felt warm inside, burning up really, he noticed that he was beginning to shiver.

“It’s late, Duncan.” Her breath made plumes of gentle frost in the air delicate as little clouds. “Where’s your horse and cutter?”

“Over at the feed mill. I’m going to buy a car.”

“When?”

“When we get married.” Duncan walked toward her through the snowy dark. He’d said it now and now he was really shivering. “Please marry me, Carole!”

Carole’s face didn’t look happy, not like he’d always imagined her face would look once he’d finally gotten around to saying it. She looked sad.

“Oh god, Duncan, I’m not planning on getting married just yet. I have to stay here and help my parents. You know how it is. With some things.”

“Wilf McLauchlin came out to see me today. He’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh?”

Duncan reached the bottom step. He put his boot up on it. “He said he’ll come to our wedding. I’m going to ask for him to make a speech.”

“Are you on your way home right now then? Is that where you’re going right now?”

Duncan could see that her hand had gone behind her back and she was feeling for the door. He had to think of something to say. “It’s okay to get married if Wilf McLauchlin’s going to come to the wedding. Your parents won’t mind. He’s a war hero.”

“I know.”

Duncan began to climb the steps. “What’s the matter? You were going to marry Donny Mason.”

“That was different, though. Things have changed.”

“What’s changed?”

Carole opened the door—she wasn’t going to answer.

“We don’t have to get married right now,” Duncan blurted out. He’d reached the top step. “When, though? When?”